Stuck
by Heretohavefun
Summary: Ward and Skye are captured while on a mission together. What happens is far from good, but it may bring about Skye's defining moment. [Rated Teen for swearing and dark themes in later chapters] {Please R&R, I love to hear people's thoughts and critiques!}
1. Chapter 1

The pressure of his head on her lap was oddly comforting and reassuring. It reminded her that she wasn't necessarily here all alone; there was someone else in this with her. She sat up against the cold hard wall of the small unlit room and absently mindedly stroked the hair on his head. To say she had been counting the minutes would be an understatement. She had been counting the seconds since she had woken up in the pitch black room, paranoid about the time in which it would take her partner to rejoin the land of living and how long it would take them both to be rescued. The sudden change in movement as her partner's head gently eased off her lap made her jump a little, but she quickly relaxed when she realized what was happening.

"Skye?" He immediately asked voice raspy and quiet.

"Hey looks like the robot finally reboot. How you feeling super spy?"

"I've felt worse. How long was I out?" Ward asked moving his head out of Skye's lap and positioning his body up against the wall next to her.

"Since I woke up, you have been out for 1 hour 33 minutes and 7 seconds. Give or take a few seconds."

He nodded and began to get up off the ground. The room was so dark all Skye could make out was his silhouette even though he was literally standing right in front of her.

"Ward, don't bother, I spent like forever trying to find a way out. There is nothing. We're stuck."

After slowly moving around the room, hands running along each of the small four walls, and coming to his own, but same conclusion, Ward made his way back to Skye and sat back down next to her. "You good Rookie?"

"I'm fine. Just a little cold. It is cold in here right? That's not just me?"

"Not just you."

"Good. When do you think the team is going to bust in here and rescue us?"

"Soon. They'll come."

"Good. I'm getting kind of bored."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, until Skye decided that was enough.

"You know you never taught me how to hold up under torture. Are you up for giving a crash course?" Skye asked with a slight light heartedness to her tone.

"Skye."

"Ward."

"I'm not going to give you a crash course. It's not going to come to that. Don't worry. These guys didn't have a history of violence or anything. We are going to be fine. We just have to be patient."

"But-"

"Skye don't worry."

"Fine," Skye said. "I'm not good at being patient though," she mumbled.

They fall back into the solemn silence once again, not saying a word to each other. Suddenly the once pitch back room is filled with bright white light. Ward darts up immediately, the sudden change seems to not faze him. On the other hand, Skye takes a moment to gather her bearings, the abrupt contrast from being in total darkness and now in bright light causing her to be momentarily blinded as her senses adjust. She quickly gets up though, and stands behind a battle ready Ward.

There is a large bang as a door opens and slams against the wall. They had both felt the indentation of the door in the wall before, but it was no help to them because there were neither hinges on the wall nor a doorknob on the actual door itself. It was one way, and they were not the right way. Three large, buff, fairly ugly, men walk into the room, and another stands in guard in the doorway. There is no better way to describe their demeanor other than to say they were all the epitome of pure ugly anger.

"Take the girl," the largest of the group said in a harsh Russian accent. To his left, his partner moves forward in an attempt to grab Skye, but Ward blocks him and sends his fist crashing into the man's face. The man stumbles backward onto the floor and almost instantaneously out of nowhere; Ward is seizing and falls to the ground in a fit. The last of the three had pulled a Taser gun and had shot an unexpecting Ward.

"Ward!" Skye yells as she follows him to the ground as he seizes and shakes from the high electrical jolts being given to his body.

"Grab her now," the leader says, and the man that had originally tried to grab Skye forcefully rips her up off the ground and begins to drag her out of the room. She kicks and screams, but it is little use considering the man dragging her away is at least three times her size.

"Ward! Ward! Grant!" Skye yells desperately. She cranes her head to look back into the room only to see Ward still lying tensely on the floor. Skye sees the other man smash his boot into Ward's head, rendering him completely unconscious. This gives Skye a sudden boost of energy and she thrashes against the man and yells profanities against him. "LET GO YOU FUCKIN ASSHOLE! GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!" Skye screams, but even though she is squirming, and kicking, and thrashing about, the man's grip only tightens and she is led out of the room completely and down a dimly lit hall, away from Ward.


	2. Chapter 2

Skye is pretty much thrown into a chair in the middle of another dark dingy room. It wasn't quite as dark as the one she had been stuck in before with Ward, but it was definitely getting pretty close. She is pushed into a proper sitting position by one of the men and her wrists and legs are forced into metals cuffs attached to the chair. He gets it done quickly and backs away, exiting the room. Now it was just the leader with her, the others all gone. The man was tall and hefty. Most of his face was covered by a thick brown beard and his large nose could not be missed. His eyes were cold and menacing and Skye could not help but shiver as they looked her up and down.

"What the hell do you want?"

"What do I want?" He asks sternly, his thick Russian accent making him sound angrier then he actually was. "I want to know what SHIELD knows."

"Well Buddy, you screwed up then, because I'm not even an agent yet. I know shit." Skye says putting all her strength into her words, trying to make herself seem brave and not scared like she really was.

"Oh is that true? Cause I have information that you were hired by Shield because you are hacker." The Russian man steps closer to her so his face is barely within inches of Skye's. "You have had access to a lot of Shield information. Trust me you know what I want to know."

Skye spits in his face. She probably shouldn't have done that, but he was just so close and it was really all she could think of doing, and Skye has never really been good at controlling her impulses either. In response the Russian growls and steps back slightly, wiping the spit of his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He gives Skye a hard glare and slaps her across the face hard, to the point where her whole face jerks to the right. Skye slowly moves her head back into a normal position and glares at her captor.

"Fuck you." She says with a little less power than she would have liked.

"Let's start over, shall we?" The Russian says as he meticulously and slowly rolls up the sleeves of his white button down formal shirt. He seemed to be dressed pretty well for a guy that kidnaps and beats people, like his white shirts must get stained pretty quickly in his line of work. He finishes rolling up his sleeves and begins to speak again.

"My name is Sebok. You will tell me what I want to know, or you will be punished. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." Skye says bitterly.

"Good. To start, who is your commanding officer?"

"Your mom," Skye answers immediately and almost just as immediately she receives another hard slap to her face.

"Not funny. How about another question? What is Centipede?"

"Did you not go to preschool or something? Centipedes? Really? Couldn't you just Google it instead of beating me up over some fricken creepy crawly with a hundred legs?" As she expects, Skye receives another slap to the face.

"You know, next time could you slap the other side? I want both sides of my face to be equally red and bruised. Then it will look like I wanted it that way." Instead this comment does not receive a slap, but instead a hard punch right in the middle of her face. Skye's head whips back and she quickly feels a pounding throbbing sensation all across her face. As she tilts her head forward, back to normal, she feels a warm hot liquid leek out of her nose. Blood streams down her face from her nose and drips in a constant rhythm onto her jeans. She naturally tries to raise a hand to stop it, only to remember her hands are locked into the chair.

"Come on dude? Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of clothes?" Skye said trying to ignore the pain in her face.

"Stop being a bitch and you won't have to worry about any more blood staining your little outfit." Sebok stepped closer to Skye, invading into her personal space much like the last time when she had spit on him for it. This time Sebok made the first move, and grabbed Skye's hair and yanked her head back hard. He held it there for a moment wanting Skye to relish in the discomfort. She didn't look at him, she just stared at the ceiling and swallowed hard as she felt and tasted the blood from her nasal cavity run down the back of her throat and into her mouth.

"Centipede. Tell me what it is."

Skye kept her mouth shut which she knew was sure to piss Sebok off, but she just kept on thinking about what any other real shield agent would do in this situation. Ward may have not taught her how to hold up under torture, but what better way to learn than to figure it out as you go.

When a minute passed without Skye giving him and answer, Sebok yanked her had back harder and further, and a small pained grunt escaped from Skye.

"That's how you want to do this then? Maybe I will just beat the answers out of you. How does that sound?"

It sounded awful, but Skye knew she wasn't going to tell him anything without putting up a fight. Skye kept her mouth shut again, and didn't reply to his comment.

"Fine then, you little stubborn bitch. More fun for me."

Sebok released Skye's hair from his hold and let her head fall back into place. He gave her a creppy little smile and without hesitation plowed his fist into her stomach. Skye grunted involuntarily and keened over in the chair as much as her restraints allowed. The punch knocked all the wind out of her and made her feel like she was going to vomit all the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

"Is that all you got?" Skye said shakily, straightening up, trying to recover from the blow.

"You only wish." Sebok sneers, and delivers another forceful punch, this time more centered on her ribs.

Skye winced as she thought she felt (or maybe herd) a crack. He repeated the action on her other side and it hurt just as bad. Tears began to pool in her eyes, but she would not let him see he cry.

"I am not going to tell you anything." Skye was rewarded with yet another punch and another after that. The cycle repeated for several minutes until Skye was bloody and bruised.

"It is such a shame to have to wreck a pretty face like yours." Sebok says quietly, but purposely loud enough for Skye to hear, as he steps away from her calmly rubbing the knuckles on his right fist and staring down at the floor a hardened intense questioning expression consuming his face.

"Ready to talk?" Sebok asks looking directly at Skye's small crushed broken form. She gave him her best glare possible and gave her head a very small shake from side to side. She had not said a word through it all and wasn't planning on saying anything anytime soon. Looking at Sebok, Skye could tell he was losing it. He was getting very angry now, expecting her to have broken a while ago.

"Fuckin tell me bitch!" he yelled and in a fit of rage kicked Skye's chair backwards. She and it fell to the floor with a thud. The sudden impact of the chair and her body strapped to it hitting the cold concrete floor just made everything hurt ten times more. Skye let out a pained moan and stared up at the ceiling wondering when it would all be over. Maybe she would pass out with another few punches and Sebok would be done with his torment. Maybe Ward would come in somehow and be her knight in shining armor, like that time at Quinn's party. Maybe the rest of her team would just come busting through the door at any moment and save her from the hell she put herself in.

Sebok grabbed the back of her chair and roughly pulled it up from the ground and placed it back to normal. The movement made Skye dizzy. She let her head droop forward, chin to chest, in hopes that the room would just stop spinning. Even though Skye knew Sebok was behind her, but that didn't stop her heart from racing as she felt his nasty breath on the back of her neck behind her ear.

"Let's try a different approach," he whispers.


	3. Chapter 3

When Grant Ward awoke he found himself in darkness again. However, this time he was much less comfortable. Before he had awoken with his head gently resting in Skye's lap, and now he had woke up on the cold hard ground. He quickly stood up, remembering everything that had happened earlier in the room. The sudden movement made him dizzy, but he blocked it out like he had been trained to do and focused on the now.

"Skye?" Ward called out into the darkness of the room.

His stomach dropped when there was no answer. He slowly made his way around the room, hoping to find her on the floor or something, unconscious, but there with him, in the room, relatively safe. Unfortunately, Skye was not there and Ward punched his fist against the wall when he realized this.

"Shit," he said softly. Millions of different scenarios of what could be happening to Skye, his rookie, ran rampant through his head. She had been right before. He should have taught her how to handle herself in a situation like torture because that is what they were probably doing to her now. He should have taught her how to protect herself more. He should have been a better S.O, and he fully realized that now.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened again and the room's lights were switched on once again. Ward turned around to face the door, prepared and ready for whatever came through this time.

At first nobody came through, it was just an open door and he contemplated running out, but his gut told him to stay, that something wasn't right. His gut was right because only a minute or two later Skye was showered into the room, by one of the men from the before. The door closed behind her, but this time the lights were left on, filling the room with a yellow glow.

Skye didn't move at first. She just stood and stared at the floor, quite. This allowed Ward to take in the sight before him fully.

First off, Skye was barely clothed. She had a purple bra and underwear on and that was it. Second, her hair was a mess. The ponytail she had it in before, was practically gone: loose pieces hung close to her face, the actual pony tail itself sagging down by the base of her neck instead of its usual place in the center back of her head. Third, from what Ward saw when she had entered and what he could see now, since her head was down, her face looked bloody, and by the looks of it, the source had been her nose. Fourth, although her arms hugged her midsection, Ward could tell it was black and blue with bruises. The bruises didn't stop there though. They were everywhere and they must be bad if they had been showing this quickly. He also noticed that one of her knees had a good sized cut on it, which left a line of blood down her leg pooling at her ankle.

"Skye," he said softly, unsure of what to say. She looked up at him and the look she gave him made his heart break.

Skye gave a half-hearted little side grin and walked over past him to the wall she had been sitting up against originally. She slid down it and sat herself unto the floor, curling her legs up to her chest and resting her arms on her knees. She let out a breath a just stared blankly forward.

The sight made Ward angry and sad at the same time, but mostly angry. Look at what they did to his Rookie. She was beat up and bruised and broken. He was mad at himself for not protecting her and he was made at them for hurting her. He just wanted to kill them all. He wanted to make them hurt like how she must be now. He wanted to punch his way out of this stupid room and make them all pay for hurting Skye.

But that wasn't possible right now. What was possible was being there for his Rookie, and she defiantly needed someone right now.

Ward walked over to her and sat down against the wall next to her. He gave her a little room, not siting to close, but also not far enough where he would seem cold or distant.

"Looks like I could have used that crash course after all," Skye said. She tried to make it a joke, but her weak voice just made it sound somber and depressing.

"Skye I'm-"

"It's fine Ward," she said softly cutting him off. She still looked off into the distance, seemingly focused on something on the back wall of the room.

"Did they-"

"Ward," Skye said shakily and quiet, but still cutting him off again.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments. Ward didn't want say anything to her, unsure of what would be okay to say to her right now. Skye stayed quiet because she thought if she stared to talk she may lose it and she really didn't want to break down right now. But then again, talking always made her feel better.

"I didn't end up telling them anything," she mumbled.

"You should have." Ward said quietly in reply.

"Why?" Skye asked puzzled. She turned her head to face Ward, wondering what his answer could possibly be.

Ward turned his head to look at her and breathed in. "If you had told them what they wanted, you wouldn't have had to get hurt. It wasn't your job to stay quiet; you're not an agent yet."

Skye didn't know what to say back. It was true, she wasn't an agent yet, but she also knew that not giving Sebok what he wanted was also just doing the right thing and Skye had wanted to do the right thing.

"That was kind nice for a Robot to say," Skye mumbled softly.

"Well I'm not actually a Robot so you know I do say nice things when the time is right," Ward joked back and Skye actually gave a little tiny laugh. She smiled and slowly scooted closer to him, partly for the warmth, because she was actually freezing, and partly for the comfort. Skye rested her head on Ward's shoulder and let out a small sigh.

"You're pretty comfortable for someone who is supposed to be made of metal."

Ward smiled and looked down at his rookie. She had now closed her eyes and was resting comfortably up against him and he did not mind one bit. It was the least he could do for her now.

"Mind if I take a little nap?" Skye mumbled under her breath sounding extremely tired.

"Go right ahead Rook."

He waited for another remark, particularly because he knew Skye didn't really like the rookie nickname, but one never came. Skye was already fast asleep on Ward's shoulder and he was happy to just let her rest.


End file.
